


Lord I Felt So Weak

by chewingonpearls (Reallife)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Darcy is a mutant, F/M, Fond Family, Grifter Darcy, Secrets, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, repost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-17
Updated: 2016-11-17
Packaged: 2018-08-31 13:04:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8579623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reallife/pseuds/chewingonpearls
Summary: Wolverine was sent to bring Darcy Lewis to Xavier's School when her powers manifested. He failed. They kept meeting though--sometimes on accident, and sometimes not. It was always brief, because they weren't ready yet, until the universe decided they were.





	

  
Chapter 1  


**The angel of love was upon me  
** And lord I felt so small  
~*~  
When Wolverine is first told about Darcy Lewis he has recently rejoined the X-Men, and he scoffs at him recruiting anyone. He laughs outright when they tell him it’s a 13 year old girl whose powers have just revealed themselves and she’s _running_. Chuck insists it has to be him though, he does it in that quiet but determined tone that makes it hard for him to say no and just as difficult to be resentful towards.

So he goes. Darcy Lee Lewis can control, emit and absorb electricity. This became known when one of her classmates accused her of stealing a gold necklace from her locker during gym class. Chuck informed him that Darcy had not actually stolen the necklace, and had been deliberately framed. When she was accused of the act in front of her peers however Darcy had a panic attack and put half the town into a blackout.

The girl is the only known child of Beverly Lewis, father unknown. Her mother works three jobs in the blink-and-you-miss-it-town of Sayre, OK. It has one stoplight, and a ‘Gun, Bait and Grocery’ store on main street with a liquor store attached--because the state’s liquor laws are both irritating and hilarious. He arrives on the tail end of a story from one town over of a girl Darcy’s age whose father had put her in the hospital who had also come out as a mutant. Her father had tried to ‘beat the devil out of her’, putting her in the ICU. 

Wolverine wasn’t handling that one. It was in everyone’s best interest if someone else brought her in.

The fact that the words on his shoulder blade burned into existence on her birthday never occurs to him. As he arrives however, Darcy has boarded the only bus that runs through town once a month. He only barely catches a look of wary, big blue eyes and curly hair before she’s shuffled onto the metal deathtrap.

He heads back to New York, displeased at his apparent failure but unwilling to pursue the bus. He’s just not that kind of guy.

 

(Yet)

~*~  
The second time Chuck sends him after Darcy she isn’t Darcy at the time. Her name is Norah, and she’s living with a couple of other mutant teens and most of them are attending high school in Orlando like they’re normal. 

It’s been three years, and he’s different now. More Logan than Wolverine most days. Kitty has come into his life like a whirlwind and taught him there was some goodness in him, he’s recovered some of his memories and saved some lives. It’s brought a measure of patience, and a little more apt to take a second look at someone.

Chuck says it’s important that he be the one to give her the ‘family of mutants at the school of learning’ speech. It’s trite, and he’s still skeptical about ‘why him’ but he doesn’t press, it’s nice to get back on the road. He watches her for several days, getting a feel for the type of woman she is growing into. She isn’t the leader of their band of misfits, but she keeps things running smoothly in subtle ways. The younger ones are fed, and he hears her give a lecture to one of them about lying low and not stealing. They don’t need to stick out, they’ll get picked up. What will happen to them then?

 _Norah_ manages to be both comforting and intimidating, and is fine with pulling strings from the back end of their operation. The days turn to the weeks, and he finds an odd sort of zen in watching her learn how to make their new identities from one of the older mutants who is obviously charmed by her.

Chuck wants her back at the mansion, hell he wants all of these kids(most people are kids to him if he’s being honest) back at the mansion. But he isn’t really sure if that’s necessary, and he isn’t known for following the letter of the law.

She likes to come off as shallow so people underestimate her. It’s a front however, and she doesn’t need special training or his senses to spot him tailing her. A smirk is his only greeting, when he watches her short circuit a security camera(two, he later realizes, one on the ATM and one on the building). She electrocutes the ATM in a way that causes it to dispense all of it’s cash but also not leave it smoking, and salutes him--he returns it with his stogie and a matching smirk--before casually walking down the street.

Then he leaves. He almost says goodbye, but they’ve never spoken, and he feels like the odd sort of understanding they have would shatter if they did, so he just leaves with her watching him through the window.

(He doesn’t feel like he failed this time)  
~*~  
**Oh leave me here forevermore  
** I've found the peace I've been searching for  
The angel of love was upon me

It’s only been a year, and he finds her by accident. She’s Caroline now, and back in the south, Kentucky this time. It’s amusing to him, James Howlett, Logan, Wolverine. Whoever he is at that moment, an ever shifting jumble of blood lust, loneliness, and amnesia. A man torn between being happy with the odd family he’s building with some of his fellow mutants and guilt over past crimes and extra guilt over crimes he doesn’t remember but knows he did.

It’s so amusing to him, to see her at the twilight of the day sitting on a bench in central park, he almost talks to her. _This will be the day_ , except he doesn’t. Because he had dreams of vampire Jubilee attacking the innocent Jubilee he had first met and ripping out her throat. Because he was hungover; it was hard for him to get drunk but Hank liked to say that if you believed in yourself and tried hard enough you could do anything. That applied to drinking(that’s how he chose to interpret it at least). Maybe that wasn’t Hank, maybe it was Mister Rogers. Either way, his head hurt, he had just woken up and crawled out of a waitress’ bed and wasn’t fit for speech yet. Dreams drove him to drinking and fighting, which led to more dreams. The circle sometimes broke for a time, but always started again.

He sits down beside her on the bench, where she works yarn through her fingers and a giant crochet hook, and only glances up at him once with a serene smile, lips moving to the music being funneled into her ears from her ipod.

Wolverine has enhanced senses. He can smell himself; it’s _God awful_. Like really awful. Darcy/Caroline/Norah doesn’t say anything though, nor does she comment on his out of control hair and face scruff that has flown past crazy-man territory.

If the world was a good place someone would stop the hobo looking guy from bugging the young, beautiful girl(and she is, he can see that even in his current state). 

As it turns out, the world is not a good place, and no one bothers them. The only further acknowledgement she gives him is to take out one of her earbuds to hand it to him, her face expectant.

He takes it, because he’s stunned and isn’t entirely sure he can open his jaw to tell her ‘no’. Once he sticks it in his ear he hears Bob Dylan’s _Desolation Row._ A few minutes pass in companionable silence that he desperately clings to while trying not to question it, until she pulls something from her bag to unceremoniously drop it in his lap. 

It’s a crochet cap, and he’s too stunned and out of sorts to speak as he examines it. It’s layered, and he notices that the outside is black with thin stripes of red, and the inside is yellow and brown. The color combinations of his most frequented costumes. A heartbeat passes, no more, and Wolverine realizes two things; she must have been working on that hat for some time, and she knew more about him than he could have guessed.

It should be alarming. But it isn’t. So the music switches to a voice that he vaguely recognizes as Tom waits and he finds himself drifting to sleep. Later the hat and her knowledge of him will probably send his brain into paranoid overdrive. For right now though, he pushes it aside, finding it oddly easy.

A kiss then, unpainted full lips place a chaste kiss on his cheekbone and she lingers just long enough for him to smell her chapstick. He acts like he didn’t notice it, like he’s already asleep, and she acts like she doesn’t see the heat and color rise to his face.

(he does not dream).

 

~*~  
**The angel of love was upon me  
** And lord I felt so clean  
The next time he sees her it is half an accident. He catches her scent(when did it become so familiar, exactly?) on a street in Williamsburg, layers and layers of it like she takes this same route often. Without thinking he follows it to a diner, and sees her in a tacky uniform that makes him grin. Her name tag says Max, her coworker’s says Caroline, and he laughs to himself because she used to be Caroline.

Before she can see him she’s disappearing in the back, and apparently he sat in Caroline’s section anyway. It’s okay though, he hadn’t been expecting a heart to heart when he opened the door, he wasn’t expecting anything really. It was usually easier that way. After Caroline takes his order she rushes to the back, and a few minutes later ‘Max’ pokes her head out the door and locks eyes with him, grinning like a madwoman.

Her lips are painted a bright red, brighter than he had ever seen before and there is a wildness in her eyes that he missed. It’s been, what, two years? The time between sightings is erratic for them, and he wonders if she counts them. Like he does. At least, when he’s sober.

She’s a wanderess. Like him. This is the third state he’s seen her in that wasn’t the one she was born in. Sipping at his coffee and eating his mediocre burger he wonders what she would have been like had she not been born a mutant. Would she still be in Sayre, married to a high school sweetheart? Probably waitressing at the one bar in town? Or would that spirit of her’s be present either way? 

It was hard to tell.

She doesn’t speak to him. It’s like a ritual now. Like some kind of creeper though he hangs around out front, and she finds him on her break like it’s natural. Without batting an eyelash she takes the cigar from his mouth, takes a long drag and hands it back to him, kisses his scruffy cheek and skips inside.

(Fuck)

~*~  
Domino and him fall down in a tangle of limbs with spatters of their enemies blood drying on their skin. A rifle is digging into his knee and her nails dig into his skin with such ferocity they would probably scar anyone else, but not him.

Maybe that’s why they are doing this. Why they fuck on battlefields mostly clothed, and why she never wants to see him out of this version of himself, the animal who thrives on the blood and the violence.

But when she stands up from him and rezips her catsuit he can only think of a smirk, of bright blue eyes that spoke of trouble soon to come, a heart full of concern as carefully hidden as her southern accent(meaning only about 75% of the time)

( _Fuck_ )

~*~ 

Emma Frost’s Cuckoos come to him (and if he lives another 100 years they will still probably be the creepiest people he’s met) in the middle of the night with a beer halfway to his lips. In the mansion a week and he’s already being ambushed.  
They are doing that thing where they all speak at once, and he puts his beer down because they probably didn’t seek him out to tell him about the weather(he’s never that lucky).

“She is herself again. You must find her. You must take the bullet. Or her names won’t matter anymore.”

(He leaves, this time it’s him who is running)

~*~

It’s almost eerie, that he can always find her. Instinct says to go to New York and that’s where he goes, he’s there for less than half a day before he spots her leaving Avengers Tower. With her is an elfish woman, along with Pepper Potts and the _Black Widow_ for chrissakes, she sure as hell doesn’t need his protection.

The cuckoos were wrong. It happens. The future is fluid, or some other shit like that.

Just in case--and because being close to her is a little like recharging his batteries--he hangs around for a few days. Wary about taking the chance. 

_Darcy_ (they were right about that, she’s back to Darcy Lee Lewis) doesn’t live with the Avengers, technically, but she seems to spend most of her day in their building. The woman is as safe as she could be.

Until she isn’t. Until her and the woman he now knows as Jane are walking home so late it’s morning. There is a van that he had noticed and brushed aside, but it pulls up beside the women before he can leap out of the alley he’s stowed away in. While his focus is on the men, he sees Darcy push Jane behind him and he feels an irrational sense of pride that is just absurd considering.

It’s impossible to watch the women, because he could swear they were ready for him. It’s a little much for abducting a scientist and a graduate student. These men are trained. There’s one man with a Katana that reminded him of Wade except without the jokes(little blessings), high end firearms. 

It starts to blur, red on the edges of his vision both real and imagined because his claws are out and the sounds of anger and _hunger_ that tear from his throat are far from human. Logan has slipped out; Wolverine doesn’t give a shit about witnesses because they threatened _her_.

Then, several things happen at once.

First; Darcy screams, “Jane!”  
Another spray of blood over his front and he drops his current opponent in a crumpled heap, to see if she’s okay--

Second; a katana is shoved through his shoulder. He roars in pain but doesn’t stop from moving towards Darcy and Jane, Darcy is crouched on the ground with Jane unconscious and sprawled out. There is an angry redness on her neck and a man looming over them with a manic grin and a syringe in his hand. Wolverine struggles to pull the sword from his body before his body starts to heal around it, even as Darcy stands and reaches towards the man with the syringe. There is a familiar madness in her eyes that makes his blood boil six ways to Sunday.

Third; the sound of a gun with a silencer, a distinct _pop pop pop_ that sticks out to his ears. He is twisting in such a way that two out of the three shots hit him instead of Darcy, it would have been different if he was stationary, or if he was rational. But he’s more animal than man right now, and he howls when he smells her blood. It’s just her arm, and his nose tells him that it’s not fatal. So he turns, and starts stalking towards the shooter, hunting the man who would hurt what is _his_.

Fourth; the smell of roasting flesh, as the shooter’s body is thrown into the brick of a nearby building. Bones crack and his spine breaks. He turns towards the smell, and vaguely notes that the assailants are all dead. The last man crumples beneath Darcy’s hands, and her hands are still smoking even as the man’s charred flesh falls apart, his face permanently contorted in agony. It’s the first time she’s killed(he knows these things), but her face is still rage at what he did to her friend, no panic yet(but that will come).

Fifth; Thor and Ironman land on the ground around Darcy and Jane, between him and the women. Protecting them from the man covered with blood and a half broken sword embedded in his shoulder. His hind brain recognizes that’s what his(unclaimed though she is, she’s still his) is protected. 

So his world goes dark, meeting the pavement with a sort of relief.

(It’s okay. Because she’s safe)  
~*~

The world is fuzzy.

“So you and _Wolverine_ go way back? When the fuck were you going to tell us Lewis? When were you going to tell us you were a mutant?!”

“About the time it became any of your goddamn business Stark!”

“We deserve to know what we work with every day!”

Silence  
“I see Tony. So she’s a ‘what’ then. That answers some things.”

“Shit. Bruce I didn’t mean that. Come back! Fuck. _Bruce!_ ”

~*~  
They were too prepared. They must have done something down to slow his healing factor. Goddamn mercs.

“I brought you some food.”

“Thanks Natasha. Do you...Do you want to sit with me?”

“Is that hat for me?”

“It can be.”

There’s a smile in her voice, and it helps him relax. Some part of him recognizes it, even if he doesn’t recognize the day.

“You aren’t mad?”

“I am the last to get upset with you for keeping secrets to protect yourself. Will you need more yarn?”

“Soon. I can’t bake in here, so this is the next best thing. Pro; I’m almost through with Christmas presents and it’s only June.”

~*~

The world is a little less fuzzy, and his shoulder burns like fire. It must be Banner that’s keeping him out. For his own good probably, damn interfering bastard. Probably using Hulk-strength drugs on him.

“Lightning sister, how is your arm?”

“It’s doing great Thor, thank you for asking.”

“I am glad to hear it! You protected my Jane quite nobly! I am in debt to you!”

A sniffling, and he tries to lift his arm to reach towards her. As useless as that would be, he’s shite at comforting women. That’s more of a Lebeau thing, or Kurt. Bobby. Anyone but him, really.

“She was still drugged Thor.”  
“But she was not taken, or otherwise harmed. You killed the one that dared harm her. I could ask nothing more of you.”

“You knew, didn’t you?”

“Aye. I did. I know the difference between manufactured Lightning and natural, even as a mortal. I knew from the first moment you ‘tased’ me. Well. After I woke up, of course.”

A giggle, and relief courses through him.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Your secrets are not mine to tell, sister.”

He can hear them embracing, and she lets out all of the sobbing he knows she has been keeping inside.

~*~

Finally, after too many days his eyes open. Darcy is sleeping in a chair next to his bed in a way that will surely have her complaining about her neck later, and his uninjured arm reaches out to her of it’s own accord.

Calloused, too rough and too large, ungainly fingers wrap around her soft ones. She stirs, gently and then roughly, eyes flying open to look at him. A grin pulls at her plump lips and she wears no makeup, the circles and discoloration from sleep deprivation are obvious, but she’s devastatingly beautiful.

A bit of his mind seems to both become more alert and content at once somehow when her fingers wrap around his securely. It’s a physical sign of her acceptance, which is unnecessary considering she’s hardly left this room, but it makes his old heart jump anyway.

“I don’t know if you’ve been chasing me or I’ve been chasing you, but I think--” She takes a deep breath, and there’s a weariness there that makes him want to protect her, better than he did because she deserves it, “I’m ready to be caught. Or something.” The words on his shoulder blade burns, and some part of him that would be stronger were he a little less drugged(and hungry) recognized that _ah_ , that was why he was always able to find her. Why she was always able to spot him.

His mouth opens, and he coughs, causing her to scramble out of her chair for a cup of water because it’s been (days?) since he’s actually spoken, “Darcy,” The word is so familiar in his mind but feels strange when formed by his lips, he hasn’t spoken it in over 10 years.

Fuck. He’s shit with words, “I should have looked after you better.” She lets him speak, doesn’t interrupt to object, and it sort of seals the rightness of this in his mind, “I’d like to make it up to you.”  
(So he does)

**Like the sinners before me  
** I knelt down on the ground  
Oh leave me here forevermore  
I've found the peace I've been searching for   


Just hoe your own row, yeah, and raise your own babies  
Smoke your own smoke and grow your own daisies  
Mend your own fences and own your own crazy  
Mind your own biscuits and life will be gravy  


Wolverine decided to stay in the tower for a spell. Because of course he did. Things were just going to get more complicated by the day for Darcy, she was slowly becoming more resigned to that fact. Wol-- _Logan_ , she mentally corrected herself. Since their relationship(or something) was evolving, she should probably start referring to him by his preferred name, which she was pretty sure was Logan these days.

Jane and Darcy shared an apartment in Brooklyn, but it wasn’t big enough for Logan as well, and frankly he didn’t seem comfortable--

_No_

Her fingers stilled, knife halfway through an onion as her internal monologue halted again. It wasn’t that he was uncomfortable, per se more…

The knife finished it’s slice with vigor as her face scrunched, it was hard to get a good read on him. It wasn’t surprising, he had a long time to get good at tucking away his thoughts and emotions from the world. Logan had been an erratic presence in her life since that last fateful day in Sayre, a momentary glance that burned in her mind but didn’t really stick out until the fervor of leaving had passed. 

However, he had always existed on the outskirts, like a satellite that orbited at a safe distance, they ran parallel but never touched. A warmth of (hairy and sometimes smelly) solid strength in her peripheral vision.

Now that era of her life was over, and he was in front of her (well, metaphorically at the moment. She was in the communal kitchen and he was settling into a guest suite), with only a resounding _what now?_ between them.

Cooking helped. Cooking and crochet always helped, and with the Avengers and their cohorts the former was never declined. There was an ever growing pile of diced onion on her cutting board, and it was days like this that she was absurdly grateful for the excuse to cook in large quantities. Granted, it took a slow-cooker big enough to bathe a small child(which, you never know with them, might be needed one of these days) to cook this much chilli at once, enough for two super soldiers, a God and half a dozen people who just worked their asses off daily. 

She stepped back then, to survey her work, mental calculations in her head finally deciding that this part of her process was over--thank goodness because her eyes were starting to burn _again_ \--before hefting the board full of onions over to the stove to scrape them into the pre-seasoned and pre buttered pan. 

Just in time for America’s sweetheart to come striding into the adjacent dining room, her favorite Russian assassin behind him(sorry Bucky). Natasha looked as close to apologetic as she could, because Steve was _gone_ and Captain Rogers was in his place. In his hand was a binder, and she sighed.

Well. It was coming eventually, wasn’t it?

The best defense was a good offence(or was it the other way?), and Darcy had prided herself on being very good at evasion. Her best survival skill was her way with words, not the electricity that flowed from her fingers.

“Captain! Before you get started on your speech/lecture that I’m sure is brimming with righteous indignation about truth, camaraderie and the American Way let me tell you a story.” Darcy checked the temperature of the stove, sauteing onions was a fine art on the best of days and this wasn’t one of the best.

Tomatoes next, it gave her something to focus on other than the memories she had (mostly) willingly called upon for this discussion, “Jody Ruth Jackson, raised in the same house she got her first breath in Carter, Oklahoma, we attended the same church smack dab between our two towns.” Ah, there was her accent, an odd conglomerate of her hometown and the other states she had made her home in through her life, she didn’t like sticking out in New York. Normally she hid it better.

A new knife from the drawer, a lovely clean slice through the beautiful hot house fruit, “Shortly before she turned thirteen oil prices took a steep drop,” Darcy paused, eyes lifting from her task to look at Steve, “Now I don’t know how much you know about the midwest, more specifically the south, but oil is a big deal, her daddy lost his job along with most of the oil field trash in the county.” The Captain was still tense, shoulders tight and eyes locked down. He was displeased with her, and didn’t want to be sympathetic.

Natasha knew how the story ended; she had a habit of that.

“So right after her birthday, sweet Jody discovers she can make plants grow. Obviously, she’s excited. Who wouldn’t be right?” For the briefest of moments, Darcy’s hands shook, and the blade of the knife wobbled against the cutting board. Behind her, Natasha stepped up to stir the onions, and her nearness helped Darcy to take a deep breath and continue, “Her daddy was a God fearing man, you kinda gotta be, growin’ up there. Said it was her fault that everyone lost their jobs, he tried to beat the devil outta her. ‘Till the neighbors couldn’t ignore it anymore an’ called the sheriff.” Another tomato, the motions of her hands stiff and mechanical, “I visited her before I ran. It was almost a month later an’ she was still in the hospital. Said I was sorry. Sorry for not comin’ sooner, for runnin’ an’ not waitin’ for her, for not stayin’. I was so sorry. But I ran anyway.”

Blue eyes darted around the room before locking onto the ceiling, composing herself with deep breaths, stowing away everything that came with those memories. Finally, she cleared her throat, “Now Captain. This is the part where you tell me that the dirt poor mutant girl should embrace openness and honesty.” A dramatic flourish of her hand to give him the floor brought another scowl to his face, and she could tell he was trying to settle on an emotion to present now. It had worked, he was off his game. Steve Rogers was a direct individual, he approached things head on, while Darcy was more than willing to come at him sideways if it got the job done.

“That was tragic, but you’re older now, not as vulnerable, and among friends.” He said the last part like it hurt, it made her feel a little more sympathetic towards him, and because it was him, she knew it wasn’t intentional, “I don’t like secrets Darcy.”

Natasha rolled her eyes so that only she could see, and Dracy snorted, stifling her giggle, “So says the government pawn and show pony.”

“Those kinds of secrets are kept for the safety of the American--”

“Exactly. _Safety_. Do you think I moved around an’ hid for shits an’ giggles? Anyway, I am done hiding, mostly. Ish. I mean, I’m Darcy again.” Steve’s eyes dart towards the binder on the table in an almost unconscious gesture, and she realizes then what it was. It’s her file, or rather, the file on her by S.H.I.E.L.D, and she thinks she just answered one of his questions. He’s naive in some respects, or maybe he wants to see the good in the people he’s putting his life on the line for so much he blinds himself on purpose, “Steve _right now_ there is a rich, balding man with his trustfund son sitting in a room with like minded individuals who want nothing more than to see people like Jody, Logan and me to roast on a pike. They have ripped teenagers from their homes, they have hurt the people around them, so I’m _not_ sorry I keep things hidden.”

“You knew, didn’t you?” Natasha is quietly taking the diced tomato from Darcy to drop it in the pan, and even though he doesn’t say her name both the women know who he’s speaking to.

“Mostly. I decided a long time ago she wasn’t a threat.” It isn’t assuring, and there is no kind smile like there would be from anyone else, because it’s her. But Darcy grins all the same, giving him a _whatchu’ gonna do now?_ look, one that he was familiar with, albeit under very different circumstances.

“Were you ever going to tell us?” He _needs_ to know this, she realizes. Steve had woken up with no one he knew and had been slowly building a rag tag family that she had been gradually gravitating towards, he would die for the people he cared about(hell Steve would die for strangers). What felt like betrayal from her stung, and he was grasping for something to pull her back to the place in his head(heart?) that she had begun to carve for herself. Maybe her saying that she was eventually going to tell them(everything?) would help.

Darcy had never liked authority figures, that was why she defended against _Captain America_ approaching her like the girl who had hit the road and never looked back before puberty even fully set in. 

But this wasn’t Captain America anymore, at some point he had slipped away and _Steve_ was back, trying to make sense of it all. So she didn’t lie, even though her first instinct was to do so.

“When it became your business.” It could have, one day, just like today. Today it became their business. Sort of. Except if there had been enough time between Thor and Tony arriving on the scene for her to get her _fuck those goddamn shitbags who hurt Jane!_ feelings under control, had been able to stop the naked electricity from dancing across her skin, she would have lied about it. Logan would not have told. Logan understood.

“What bothers you more Steve,” Damnit all. She was too damn tired for this, too damn stressed, too damn on edge, damn everything,“That I’m a mutant, my involvement with Logan, that I thought he was my soulmate, or the fact that I’m happy that he is?”

“I know you think you and him have something in common Darcy but he’s dangerous let us--”

The knife is snatched from her hand almost as soon as she points it at the blonde, all puffed up and hissing like a cat, and she’s getting so worked up she doesn’t mind Natasha stowing the knife back in it’s place before going back to the food prep as if this is all perfectly normal.

“Don’t you act like you understand a damn thing about him, what I can handle, or what I know. That’s between him and I.” Steve Rogers should be thanking his lucky stars she considered herself above roasting a national icon. It was hard to say what made her blood boil more, him questioning her judgement, her ability to take care of herself, or Logan’s--what, honor? Self control? She wasn’t even sure, but she wasn’t just talking out her ass, she was 16 when she figured out who he was and had done her homework. Scoured the internet and with the help of one of her ‘roomates’(read: fellow runaway freaks) she had hacked into the X-Men’s databases and a few others. 

More than that though, she knew the man who watched over her, knew his eyes, knew his smell, and the safety it brought like the one old blanket she had brought from home when she ran. She felt when he was near, always had, knew when he was lurking in the shadows and watched her. Her instinct said to trust him, as time went on Logan never gave her any reason to doubt that.

Then he saved her and Jane, and seeing him closer to the _Wolverine_ she had read about; vicious, feral, animalistic, still didn’t scare her.

Because he wouldn’t hurt her. Not that she had any illusions about him. Darcy has read the reports about X-Force, about Domino, Laura, Deadpool. About what they did, it should have scared her, should have kept her up at night with nightmares of blood, blade and bone.

It didn’t. Darcy didn’t want to do that, wasn’t a killer, but he knew that, and he kept coming back.

“Darcy, he saved your life, I get that but I’ve seen him--”

“I don’t give two tugs of a dead dog’s dick what you say, or what you think at this point Rogers. This is the point where you leave before I get kicked out of the tower for frying your ass.” Blue bands of electricity danced between her fingertips, which was absurd because she had not lost control like this in an argument since Freshmen year of college and if he didn’t shut his _goddamn mouth_ here in a minute she was going to be in a fight she was ill equipped to win(but she sure as hell was going to try).

“Let’s go.” Natasha guides him out with her hand on his arm, and his face says that this isn’t over but her’s still says she’s ready to go after him for insulting her--whatever Logan is to her.

Darcy closed her eyes, chest expanding as she worked to calm herself, reminding herself she’s been through far worse than a scolding from Captain America and she’d be twice damned if she was forbidden from the tower because he made her snap.

An already familiar voice behind her then, and a heavy hand on her shoulder. He snuck up on her, and she jumps, before relaxing, tension slowly seeping out of her body like water. More important than the question of how much he had heard, was the happy realization that he hadn’t stepped in. It was Darcy’s fight as much as it was his, and he let her have it, let her choose her strategy, her fight, let her defend herself and him. Maybe she wasn’t a genius like Jane, or as strong and cruel as Natasha, but she didn’t need anyone to defend her.

Logan knew that, even though she had a sense that he was as stubborn as her, he let her do that on her own.

“You’re beautiful when you’re angry.” If she could fall into his voice, his scent, she would. Seek refuge in it from the world like a pillow fort, but that wasn’t for them. So instead she leaned into his touch, drawing strength from it and feeling more like herself with every breath.

Darcy grinned, “Oh? What about when I’m not angry?” The teasing, the flirtatious dance, was new for them. Most everything was new to them, really, but they were tentatively taking to it in the two days since he had woken up leaning the new dynamics of this thing they had found themselves in(though they had already been there, hadn’t they?).

He stepped closer to her, and she, who was used to looking over her shoulder and protecting herself didn’t stop him. Didn’t tense or move when his head rested on her shoulder though the thought whispered through her mind because old habits die hard and if anyone understood it would be him, “Tempting.”

They had an interesting journey ahead. They already had history, so they were steps ahead of normal soulmate pairs, but then there was so much she still didn’t know about him and he her. In a way they had learned the middle of the dance before the beginning.

Well. Nothin’ that came easy was worth havin’, right?

  
  


~*~

  
You're the high to my low and the give to my take  
The shadow I cast and the echo I make  
The calm to my storm and the lesson in my mistakes 

The sound that came from Darcy’s mouth as she ate her first _real_ piece of sushi was not entirely appropriate for public hearing, and Logan somehow found it both arousing and adorable. It surprised him a little, that Stark hadn’t forced overpriced sushi on Jane and Darcy since they had signed up at Stark Industries, though it was just as likely that he had tried and one or both of them had squirmed out of the invite.

All the better, because this was the best sushi in New York. They were at a restaurant that defined “hole in the wall” and was wedged in between a store selling knock off designer brand everything and another that sold an array of spices and ‘exotic’ cooking ingredients. To the people who frequented this niche of the city, the shops were a piece of home in a for-eign land. To the locals of New York they were something to gawk at or experiment with one time and never return.

As they entered, Logan saw Darcy eyeing the spice shop with an inquisitive expression, and he had the strong feeling they would be stopping by the shop on their way out. Darcy preferred things that she could easily cook in large batches, and meals that could be heated up. Many of her habits were born from taking care of others, working with few ingredi-ents due to a low budget and not having a lot of time. These were things he already knew, learned from observing her, and from his own experience in leading a similar life.

But there were other things he was gradually learning about her, now that they were speaking. Things he found himself storing away in his mind like a chipmunk hoarded nuts for the winter. Like how she loved spicy food, but only if it had a big flavor to go with it. This was evident in how she loved spicy curry but not ghost peppers, would try any new food once, and wasn’t afraid to tweak recipes even if it was her first time with it.

Darcy had never gotten the chance to enjoy sushi, and Logan was notoriously picky about his sushi, having enjoyed pieces in Japan with fish only hours off the boat. This was something entirely normal that he was happy to share with her. In fact, their whole day had been just that _normal_. No crazy attacks, flashbacks or being stalked. It was… refresh-ing, and he wasn’t above relishing it, nor did he feel selfish for feeling they deserved it.

Like him, Darcy would rather be here, at a family run joint, than a five star place with fancy napkins and snobby waiters.

“Penny for your thoughts?” He was broken out of his reverie by her voice, something else that he had come to value more than he expected. Huskier than most women, and instead of piercing the silence he relished, she seemed to slide into it, and he welcomed the intrusion.

He reached out to snag some sashimi, “Nothin’ so valuable sweetheart.”

Logain wasn't known among his friends for his healthy romantic relationships. Those he had were usually lacking in en-durance and communication while being robust with bloodshed along with a dash of betrayal. He was determined not to let his relationship with Darcy go that way, as they make the gradual transition in staccato steps from what they _were_ to what they _could_ be.

He gave her a bemused look as he plucked the piece of ginger out of his hair that she tossed his way, “You’re lucky we’re in public.” A lecherous grin stretched across his face as he aimed the piece at her cleavage. Moments like this made him feel younger, more human.

Nothing like flirting with a beautiful girl to lure the man out of his shell, “Am I?” Eyes the color of ocean glass peered at him from beneath dark lashes as she tilted her head down, tugging at her full bottom lip with her teeth in a way she _knew_ by now made him want to do things to her he had been purposefully holding back on.

The chopsticks in his hand cracked audibly, as he tried and failed to hold back the thoughts that suddenly saturated his mind, and he knew that they played across his face by the flush in her’s.

It was she who broke the tension between them with a nervous clearing of her throat and a large drink of hot tea. Logan cursed himself inwardly, schooling his features and putting his mind back on track. He drew in a deep breath and re-leased it slowly. No one focused and calmed him like Darcy Lewis--but no one shook him up with such ease either. It was unnerving, but he was determined not to scare her off.

“So, are you going to join The Avengers now?” The words and the tone were careful, and if he was being honest he was not sure what he’s hoping to hear her answer.

Darcy reached for a gyoza and shruged, “Not planning on it. I know my mutation is good for combat, but I prefer sup-port. Shouldn’t you be convincing me to join the X-Men?” Deceptively casual, his Darcy, she still hadn't quite discard-ed her manner that lead people to believe her thoughts shallow, like she wasn't sizing everything up and assessing.

“The Avengers are already your friends, you don’t know the X-Men. I’m perfectly fine with you stayin’ outta the line of fire though.” It wasn’t that he doubted her ability to defend herself but he would sleep better with knowing she wasn’t go-ing to be jumping into a firefight with Thanos anytime soon. Logan had lost enough to Heroics to last a lifetime--more in his case.

“Thanks. For not pressuring me, I mean.” She squirmed a little in her chair and he watched her with curious eyes, won-dering at her discomfort, “Although I think it’s a moot point, I doubt Cap is going to trust me to have his back in a fight anytime in the near future.” He thought that was it, the reason that her eyes were cast outside to the bustling shoppers instead of him, the forced relaxation of her hands that still couldn't stop twitching.

Within the span of a few heartbeats he cast that aside. There was something else, but in a rare moment of tact he let it slide, “You don’t really think the boy scout will turn his back on you like that?”

“Turn his back isn’t what I mean, just that he doesn’t trust me, probably won’t for awhile. He won’t trust me in the field, and I think making an adjustment in his mindset from ‘fragile defenseless Civilian Darcy’ to ‘Can fry a guy without having help’ will be difficult, even once he’s forgiven me.”

“Him and Stark are the only ones that haven’t come around to ask you for a demonstration, and Stark is coming around.” The fact that he knew that revealed just how much time the two had spent around each other the past two weeks, as if making up for lost time. The Avengers had been curious about her abilities, the extent of them and her control. Luckily, they were far more interested in watching her drain batteries or make electricity dance between her fingers than the fact that she was in Logan’s suite as often as she was in Jane’s lab.

Darcy took her time, contemplating her words as she sipped her tea, “Stark is stubborn, but curious. He won’t hold out much longer but Steve…” Logan thought _'she’s cute when she’s thinking'_ , and _goddamn_ , when was the last time he was attracted to a woman who he thought was both cute and sexy? Usually sexy was reserved for girls in smoky biker bars, or leather catsuits with weapons, while cute was for Jubilee and Pixie.

“Steve thinks in black and white. You are one or the other with him, I think,” Her hand, quick as a snake, snagged the last roll of sushi from his plate, “You’re a bully, a victim, or a hero. Good or Evil. Friend or foe. You are a trustworthy person, or you’re not.” She said the last part with emphasis, gesturing to herself, “Bucky and Tasha are the exceptions, of course.

“What about you?”

“Me? I can’t do that Logan, people like you and me can’t live on absolutes like that. Not if we want to stay sane and not loathe ourselves. I have stolen to survive, helped teenagers get away from the government and sometimes their families, I have friends who have joined some stereotypically evil groups but I would still protect if they came to me, and I’ve been sleeping in the bed of a man who has been intermittently spying on me for roughly 11 years.” Darcy didn’t mention the bodies he’s left behind in his many years, and he wondered if she was in denial. Or just hung up on the wrong part of him, “But I still feel like I’m a good person, and I’m glad my life is the way it is. “

The lighthearted atmosphere was gone, leaving behind a vacuum of stifling tension, her eyes were glued to the outside, as if the secrets to the universe lay in the noisy shoppers bustling back and forth like fish in a stream. Comforting women or engaging in philosophical debates really wasn’t his shtick, so he stood, the grunt of “Me too” almost an afterthought as he went towards the front counter hardly a few feet away in the cramped place to pay.

They shuffled back into the crowd, and just as he predicted Darcy walked straight into the neighboring store to poke around at the spices within. The hunched old lady who ran the place didn’t speak very good English, but Darcy managed to awkwardly endear herself with sincere smiles and genuine curiosity about what the store held. Instead of following her around and probably knocking shit over he stood at the front like he was guarding the shop.

It was weird looking probably, but it relaxed him. Comforting discussions, hand holding while shopping for food stuffs like a normal domestic couple wasn’t something that would probably ever come easily, but standing guard? That he could do. Maybe if he was lucky he could punch a purse thief, it would help him relax.

Yet he was surprised Rogers had tried to warn Darcy away.

His phone rang just as she was coming out of the store with her purchases, much to his surprise, and he dreaded hearing Storm or Rachel’s voices on the other side.

“What?”

“Hey Logan, it’s Sam. Just thought you should know this girl is here asking for you. Looks like she could be your daugh-ter.”

_Well. Shit._

“Why is she there?”

“Dunno man, she showed up this morning, got shot a bunch, scared the shit of some SHIELD agents, saved Bucky’s ass and took down the big bad of the day. I don’t think Steve and Stark are too fond of her methods though.”

That brought a chuckle out of Logan as Darcy leaned her head on his shoulder, fishing out a few little candies from her plastic bags, “You guys aren’t detaining her or some stupid shit like that are you?” Because the universe liked to fuck with Logan when he was happy.

“No, and the only one she’ll talk to is Natasha, in Russian. In fact I think Natasha is like--” Sam seemed to be scrambling for the right phrasing for a moment, “Adopting her or something. It’s kind of creepy.”

Well. That settled that, “We are on our way back.” He disconnected without a proper goodbye, because as Kitty loved to remind him, he sucked at phone etiquette.

 

Before he could overthink it and talk himself out of it he took Darcy’s hand to start leading her back to the nearest sub-way station, “Laura is at the tower. I don’t know why, but she helped them in a fight and the Widow has taken a shine to her.” Darcy and her skewed self preservation instincts seems more amused than apprehensive, but was fine with being pulled in his wake.

They had different ways of moving through crowds, that’s for damn sure. Logan, while short for a man(though still taller than Darcy, but that’s not saying much) was gruff and had a scowl that made much larger men cower. People, by and large, just tended to get out of his way.

Darcy, on the other hand, flowed through the crowd like water. For the most part, she had always striven to not stick out, he had taken note of that since she'd first run, and thought that maybe she had been doing that before her powers ever manifested. Don’t get noticed, make yourself easily forgotten. Baggy sweaters and thick framed glasses, easier for peo-ple to overlook that she was often in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Probably come to get you for important X business.”

A dismissive shake of his head, before he remembered who he was speaking with. The closest thing she’s had to a real _home_ since she ran was a group of people that willingly threw themselves into the line of fire, and a best friend who was very likely going to be living in another realm in the future. The fact that they were speaking now, and that they had used her near kidnapping as an excuse for her to sleep(and hardly more than that) in his bed didn’t matter. The words branded across his shoulder and her stomach didn’t matter, because she knew his history and she expected him to leave. A whiff of her anxiety made it’s way to his nose, and a part of him _woke up_ at the scent.

Before she could protest, he had pulled her off to the space between two buildings that was hardly wide enough for one of the popular food carts.

“ **Mine.** ” He was supposed to be assuring her, comforting, but instead he leaned over her where she was pressed against the brick wall, nose running along the column of her neck, taking in _her_ \--her scent, her heartbeat, the sudden quickness of her breath.

This side had never been brought out with Domino, or even around Jean back in the day. It was only with Darcy, and it had never shown itself in a manner quite like this until recently. A gentle bite on her neck, just below her ear, was meant to soothe and calm in a way he hoped she understood, “No one is going to make me leave you but you _Darcy_ ”

A shudder wracked through her, she smells like a mix of relief and arousal, and he nuzzles the side of her neck in ap-proval before pulling away.

“We’re calling a cab,” Because he can’t be in a crowded subway in the mood she’s got him in, and she knew it, damn that grin of her’s.

  



End file.
